Getting Close

I am nearly done with the quilting on the Delectable Pathways quilt. There was no personal inspiration in this project except for my fabric choices but I do like the quilt. I estimate another week of quilting to complete that and then a few days to trim, bind, label, etc.

Another home "project" that is really coming together is the vegetable garden that we put in this year. The soil in our neighborhood is very heavy clay so not that good for vegetable gardening. But we had a fenced in garden made, complete with slate pathways and topsoil from Kennett Square--used to be the mushroom grower for the US before Canadian mushrooms took over and now that the Canada-US border is more or less closed to human traffic and Trump has tariffs on all sorts of Canadian goods, perhaps Kennett Square will emerge as the leader again.

We don't grow our own mushrooms. Some people do but that seems like a waste of time to me. I don't know how different fresh mushrooms from your basement taste compared to fresh mushrooms from five miles away. But we do grow all sorts of other plants. We have been eating a variety of fresh lettuces along with collard greens for a while now. Even though I am sort of from the south, I never had collard greens before moving back to Pennsylvania. Then we went to the library one day and the librarian pointed out small packets of collard seeds put together by another patron. We have been eating collards for several months now and giving away bags full to some or our new neighbors--a good way to meet people, even during a pandemic.

Today we picked our first tomato of the season. Since we were forced to grow our own seedlings this year we didn't have any Early Girls at all which is typically our first tomato. We buy the plants from a local garden store but that business was shut down as non-essential so we started all of our plants from seeds in the basement this year. The new garden is doing great, perhaps even too well since everything has grown so fast that it is like a jungle. I planted potatoes outside of the new garden in three different places, experimenting to see what produces the most. The plants are all thriving but the potato harvest won't happen for a while.

In the meantime we have tiny green beans, two different varieties; tiny Fordhook lima beans, tiny peppers (Anaheims and shishitos).

We also gave away a quart of rendered duck fat to a neighbor today. We have talked with this fellow regularly since we moved here, primarily because he has a lovable dog. We still maintain social distancing but he said that his daughter, who went to culinary school, was visiting and they didn't have any duck fat and I have a ton because I make duck bolognese often so I have to buy a whole duck. Anyway, I end up with bucket loads of rendered duck fat and even though it keeps well, I have way more than I need and I plan to make duck bolognese again this week.

Trump achieved another milestone of the US being first. We lead the world in Covid19 deaths. We are not even close to the world's biggest population but we have 1/4 of the world's deaths. Will he put that on a campaign banner--WE ARE STILL NUMBER ONE--just imitating the don con's habit of all caps. 

Biggest Gap

Where I live most businesses and facilities are closed. Grocery stores are open, liquor stores are now open again, but other services are shut. I can't complain that the local nail salon is closed because I can't even imagine getting a mani-pedi. Hell, I can't imagine even going to a hair salon and I have been cutting my husband's hair myself for way more than 50 years.  Part of my current view is that I have baby hair. I have always had very thin and fine hair. My late sister had very thick hair that even in the hospital where she spent her last few months the nurses and care givers commented on her luxuriant hair. Even her hospice workers who cared for her her last two weeks commented on her wonderful hair.

My hair has never been luxuriant. My mother was embarrassed by my hair to the point that she used to tape bows in my hair. Now that I am a senior citizen, my thin hair is even thinner with baldness encroaching on most of the front of my hairline. Do I care? I never had the crown of glory hair that my sister had so I cannot say I miss hair salons or beauty parlors. My husband was in the military and he was also an old school athlete so he doesn't need a barber to cut his hair. Neither of us has sat in a salon chair for more than 50 years.

What do we miss? Our local library has not been open for months. Sure, books are available online but only if one has the appropriate device. I have a Kindle that I use for reading when I travel and that I used when the library first shut down. But I read more than 1000 words per minute (that's an entire other story) so I was going through books on the Kindle very quickly and lining up other books to read. My husband reads more slowly than I so it took him some time to go through the two books he had from the library. When he finally finished them, I had to give him my Kindle because there wasn't anything else for him to read.

So what am I reading now? We inherited my husband's family library. We have old books of all sorts, most that I think my husband's grandparents thought their children should read. So I am currently reading "Lorna Doone" and I just finished reading three English plays--She Stoops to Conquer, The Rivals, and The School for Scandal. Of course I knew of these plays--my family even called me Mrs. Malaprop when I was younger than six because of my creative word use.

I don't knock the classics, but I will be glad when the library reopens. Free libraries, a Ben Franklin and American invention, are one of our best ideas. 

Yet Life Goes On

If you have followed this blog for any amount of time you already know that one of my avocations arose from one of my vocations. I was a "reader" for a city school district which meant that I read essays assigned by various teachers and gave comments, instructions, and advice. Originally that task only involved reading essays and putting in marginal notes but eventually the teachers came to rely on me for more tasks. Ultimately I offered students the opportunity to be tutored for free if they felt they needed the help and if they thought they could put up with me on a one to one basis.

While you might think that I would be overrun by students who wanted extra tutelage for free, that was never the case. There are a variety of reasons for that including the innate ennui of high school students, but over the years there were many students who availed themselves of my help. Some of those ended up leaving after only a few sessions, some came more often than their schoolwork demanded, some used me as a relief valve for the pressures of their day to day lives. I augmented my free tutelage for those students who stuck with my program, offering free advice about college application essays. I always tell people that I have been admitted to every single top rank college in the nation.

Don't misunderstand--I never wrote a student's essay. I never invented non-existent accolades. But I made suggestions (when one student asked if she could mention her baby blanket in her essay I suggested that she talk about packing for college and considering taking it with her. She ended up writing an amazing essay that didn't even need much editing.), I gave advice about what not to write about, I told them to be honest and lyrical rather than trying for ostentation.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that there are numerous young people who still keep in touch with me, not because I cheated for them but because I showed them how to tell a story about themselves that was honest without braggadocio. This week one of those students, who graduated Yale a few years ago, told me he had just been accepted to Harvard Law School. Of course right now, Harvard Law School will be taught through distance on-line learning so this fellow who has been working for the Fed in DC will be living in his parents' home and taking Harvard Law School classes online.

Congratulations and felicitations to all those who still believe in the dream.

Okay, I Am A Broken Record

Look, I get it that people are tired of being in quarantine, that people are tired of being isolated, but what is the alternative? Right now, today, Texas, Florida, and California posted their highest Covid19 infection numbers since the beginning of the pandemic. Nearly 7000 people in California, nearly 6000 in Texas and only slightly fewer in Florida. I don't live anywhere near any of those states but those numbers drive me crazy as well as make me angry.

We cannot be careless or cavalier about this virus. It is unusually contagious, it is unusually dangerous, and it has multiple devastating after effects even if one survives the first bout. Take care of yourself and then you will be taking care of your neighbor. Don't let any snake oil salesman tell you that all is well because it isn't. We aren't doing enough testing, nor are we being careful about the contact tracing necessary to control the spread.

Please take care not to be a victim, not to be a cause. 

A Republican Speaks Out

Steve Schmidtt, a long time Republican operative, wrote a statement about Trump. It is well worth reading and passing on.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/23/politics/steve-schmidt-donald-trump/index.html

Farce and Spectacle

Tulsa didn't go so well for Trump. Besides having fewer than 7000 attendees in an arena that holds 19,000, Trump didn't even rouse the few that were there. All the jokes were tired, all the exaggerations and lies were repeats, and everyone who reported on the event poked fun at Trump--just the behavior that he reacts badly to. The tweets should start around midnight tonight which seems to be the time that Trump chooses to start Twitter tirades.

A grandmother from Iowa started a TikTok movement that ended up making Trumpkins believe that the event was full to the rafters. Then when people began to realize that no one was showing up, Trump and minions made excuses that no one believed. There were not gangs of "thugs" stopping people from entering the arena, there weren't armed protestors threatening peaceful Trump supporters.

On top of all of that, consider that in the middle of the worst medical and health disaster in decades, in the middle of the ensuing economic disaster, in the middle of massive discrimination demonstrations unseen also for decades, did Trump offer any words of reassurance, did Trump point to any path forward, did Trump exhibit compassion and understanding or was he simply divisive? Everyone knows the answer to that.Trump said that he asked his forces to slow down testing for the virus because all the rising numbers made him look bad. Then his supporters had to claim this was a joke even though he has said pretty much the same thing for the past six months.

We haven't even finished with the first wave of this virus and Trump wants to dismiss it whether he is joking or not. The experts still predict that 70% or more of US residents will get the virus. The experts have changed their forecast upwards as to the number of expected deaths. Now the numbers bruited about are in the 250K to 300K range and that is by October 1. Good joke, Donny Con.

People can ignore all the warnings as much as they want. All of us want to have more normalcy. But we need a leader, not a vindictive child to whom all slights and all events are deliberate acts that are unfair. I am guessing that the true revelatory book won't be John Bolton's but Mary Trump's. 

Banana Republic

"I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position, to which I was appointed by the Judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. I will step down when a presidentially appointed nominee is confirmed by the Senate," Berman said. "Until then, our investigations will move forward without delay or interruption."

That statement from Geoffrey Berman, a lifelong Republican, came after he found out from a news broadcast that he had "resigned". He was never consulted about resigning nor did he agree to resigning. So what happened next is that AG Barr said that he had consulted with Donald Trump and that Berman's refusal to leave gracefully meant that Trump wanted Berman out sooner rather than later and that Berman's second in command would take over the SDNY (Southern District of New York) office forthwith. What investigations were the SDNY looking into--Trump finances, Trump taxes, Trump payments to women to stay silent.

But Trump said that he had nothing to do with any of this.

So--who is the lying liar and who is the freaking sycophant and how can anyone think there is an adult at the helm of this ship of state? If Trump's entire point for running for office was to highlight the inequities and injustices of the legal system in this country, he has succeeded admirably. But if we don't have a functioning legal system, to whom can we turn?

In the meantime Trump is in Tulsa stirring up hatred and Covid in a cauldron of screaming people stuck together. Six of the advance team from Trump's own campaign tested positive for the virus so they were already a contact vector for the virus. May the force of Covid19 be with all of them.

One Step Closer

Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion that protects the employment of LBGTQ people. He joined with John Roberts and the four known liberals on the Supreme Court to guarantee that civil rights are more universal than previous decisions have outlined. No one should mistake Gorsuch's decision or Roberts' agreement to mean that either man has become left wing. Rather the decision aligns with their mutual statements about looking at the language of the law rather than public sentiment. If a law, any law, prohibits exclusion because of sex (and please pay attention to the difference between sex and gender), then any actions taken specifically because of sex that injure the aggrieved party because of sex are expressly forbidden by federal law.

I don't know what that means for states such as Utah that have very free "right to work" laws which can more truthfully be described as "right not to work" laws. In Utah anyone can be terminated for any cause including political activity or pregnancy or whatever. The employer doesn't have to provide cause for termination so it becomes hard to show that it was due to discrimination based on sex.

Nevertheless, this is a step closer to equality under the law. Cheers!

New Photo

I finally got pix of the downed trees on our street. These were taken before the power company came to get the lines and poles back up.

The upper picture shows the bark stripped from the tree like a banana peel. The lower picture, more or less in the center, shows the root ball of an oak that fell across the yard with the house behind it. That house is 2.5 stories above ground so you get an idea of the size of the root ball.

I had never heard of a derecho before though coming from Texas I was quite familiar with tornadoes. Now when my husband I walk we check out the trees around us. There is an ash tree across the street that seems to be half dead, probably from the same green ash borer that killed the ash in our yard. 

Quilting New Project

I have had the Delectable Pathways quilt pattern for years but never made it because it's kind of an odd size. The social isolation of the virus cannot really be named as the impetus for making this quilt since these days I do most of my quilt shopping online anyway. Rather it is part of the ongoing effort to divest myself of stash items.

My stash is vast and includes yards rather than fat quarters. That's usually because when I finally use up a fabric that I really like I miss it. Online stores don't sell small amounts unless they are precuts (at least in my experience) but I am getting to an age where it makes more sense to use up what I have rather than purchase new. There was an article in the most recent AQ magazine about a famous quilter organizing her stash but she has tiny bits in plastic bins and I have some tiny bits and some bigger bits and some really big bits because I know they make good vines--you get the idea.

I don't know any quilters in Pennsylvania. The closest I have come is an elderly neighbor who said she made a quilt badly once. If you wonder why I, a senior citizen, describe this woman as elderly it is because she is 77. Regardless how hard you fight off the aging, each year takes a bigger toll than the one before it. Of course at this point I am thinking I might be more like my grandmother than I ever thought. She lived to be 102 and when doctors ask me if I had any relatives who had suffered broken hips after menopause I always tell them about this grandmother. Yes, she did break her hip when she was 89. But she did it falling off the roof where she had been nailing in new shingles.

Anyway, I got Delectable Pathways put together all with fabric that I already owned. That means that my quilt is a little scrappier than the original which had all of the mountain peaks in the same fabric on a single mountain and a little variety in the mountains themselves. Mine has more variety in the mountains and my peaks are wildly differentiated while still following the same color or design that I saw in my head. The only fabric I had to buy was the backing and Hancock's had a great purple paisley on sale. I already had a batting so I layered it all today and basted.

It is hot and humid here now and my sewing space is right under the eaves so not ideal but we all adjust to discomfort.

Good Joke

Now that AG Bill Barr has contradicted Trump about bunker quaking this joke is making the rounds.

Q: Why did Bill Barr use violence to clear Lafayette Park?
A: To let the chicken cross the road.

Amazing Weather

Yesterday we had seriously bad weather. Thunderstorms were predicted and right around 4 in the afternoon the sky turned black, the wind began to howl, buckets of rain poured out of the sky and the trees began to whip back and forth as if they were doing the limbo.

We lost power very briefly so our generator didn't even kick in but the rain continued for about an hour and we just hunkered down at home. This morning when reading the newspaper I found that we had been hit by something called a derecho rather than a tornado but regardless of the name, three people in the county where  I live were killed by falling trees. Then slightly later in the morning my husband and I took our normal walk. Our street, while having the same name for its entire length takes a very sharp bend two houses past ours and about three houses past that there was police tape and two enormous trees were down, one right across the yard and the other right across the road taking down all of the lines from the telephone poles. So our house and our immediate neighbors have power but the rest of the street does not. These were enormous trees, probably about 100 years old because that's when those houses were built, with root balls about 12 feet in diameter. One of the trees simply split about eight feet above the ground but the more remarkable sight was that the bark was just stripped off completely down to the ground.

I don't know many of my neighbors being so new here but I do know a couple. My husband and I visited and brought hot coffee and some fresh produce from our garden to those we know. The power company says it won't be able to restore power until Saturday.

Cowardly Punk

DJTJr (Don Jr) tweeted:
"This is the guy that the media and left just spent days telling us was a coward hiding in his basement."

That's because that is the guy who was a coward hiding in his basement. He was a bigger coward and a punk when he had Secret Service and others attack peaceful protesters so that he could walk across a street. He was a moron when he held up a Bible (upside down and backward) outside an Episcopal church. He didn't read the Bible which was upside down and backward. He didn't make any meaningful statement, nor did he offer any prayers. He directed armed thugs to attack peaceful protesters and a NBC News crew so that he could show how manly he is.

You can't make stuff like this up. Only DJT and DJTJr would believe that showed any kind of strength or courage.

We Shall Overcome

Donald Trump postured and preened holding a bible while men he controlled shot peaceful protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets. I weep for my country. I mourn the death of democracy. This is what tyranny looks like. It wears a smile and cajoles while the oppression continues. Trump is destructive and dangerous. We can overcome.